


and it goes like this

by twelvemagpies



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Brief Mention of Blood, M/M, brief description of broken bones and surgical reconstruction, fruit baskets as a mob threat, hxhbb, kurapika encounters his scariest foe yet: a normal sleep schedule and fresh air, self-care as an unorthodox method of psychological torture, senritsu comes -this close- to using her Outside Voice, world’s worst game of telephone specifically because no one actually uses their telephone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twelvemagpies/pseuds/twelvemagpies
Summary: When Hisoka climbs through his window with a basket of fruit and well wishes, Kurapika isn’tthatsurprised. When Senritsu checks in on him again (and again.....and again), Kurapika expects it. When Chrollo and Gon and Killua and Tonpa pop in and stop by and generally outstay their welcome, it's par for the course.But four weeks after Kurapika breaks his leg, and Leorio is still nowhere to be found? Kurapika’s maybe getting a little bit concerned.
Relationships: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 17
Kudos: 138
Collections: Hxhbb





	and it goes like this

**Author's Note:**

> skidding in a day late but with no starbucks bc there's a pandemic on and people in my dipshit city refuse to wear masks! (in my defense, i had this all set up and ready to go and then......fucking passed out before i hit the button to post it!! only realized when i got back home today bc i am, how you say, an idiot)
> 
> in any case, here's my fic for the HxH Big Bang, otherwise known as my free space on 2020's round of apocalypse bingo, lmao! this was really fun to write despite literally everything that could have gone wrong going wrong, and again my deepest apologies to my artist(s?) for the drive glitch that wouldn't update your link as i was writing (and sorry it took me so fucking long to notice it!!)

He hears it before he feels it: the _pop-crunch_ of his ankle catching a divot of uneven ground, the muffled snap when he crumples on his leg just the wrong way. The pounding in Kurapika’s ears is louder than even Senritsu’s flute as he scrambles for cover, propelling himself behind an overturned car with his working leg. The other is a mess of nauseating agony and quickly darkening his pant leg with an amount of blood that feels a little melodramatic, all things considered, and there’s an odd angle twisting the fabric that he trying not to think too hard about—

Kurapika scrambles for cover, waits for the rest of his team to mop up their would-be assassins, and tries very hard not to pass out. 

When Senritsu finds him afterward, grimacing and clutching his leg and insisting he’s _fine, fine, don’t worry about it, is everyone alright_ , she clicks her tongue and crouches next to him and informs him, matter-of-factly, that he’s going to need to go to the hospital. Might need to have surgery, even, and he’ll definitely be laid up for a while. 

“Honestly,” Kurapika replies, gritting his teeth, “it doesn't look like it's that bad."

It's that bad.

Kurapika survives the week of prodding by the best doctors in the best hospital in town. He grins-and-bears-it as he’s kitted out with the best screws and pins and unwieldy fucking _nightmare_ of a cast that money can buy. And now, stranded in the too-soft clutches of a couch in a Nostrade family retreat, Kurapika is crawling out of his skin. He’s a guest of the estate—at Light’s insistence and Senritsu’s increasingly less soft-spoken threats of bodily harm—for the length of his recovery, with no orders more strenuous than to relax and take as much time as he needs to get back in fighting trim.

Something that, Kurapika discovered when he came out of surgery, Senritsu had been infuriatingly resourceful enough to get down in writing.

“It’s four weeks,” Senritsu tells him, with far more confidence in his ability to sit still than Kurapika thinks he deserves. She shakes her head while he contemplates using his chains to reach for a book instead of asking her to pass it. “Even you can take it easy for four weeks.”

“I don’t know what,” Kurapika grunts, stretching as far as he can reach while slowly sinking into the couch cushions, “gives you the impression that I’m going to do anything but.”

She doesn’t do him the courtesy of dignifying that with a response, but she does take pity on him, plucking the book off the table and tapping the spine against his cast. “You’ll be more of a hassle if you come back injured than if you sit tight, you know.” 

“I know.”

“Might even get one of us killed if we have to watch your back and aren’t paying attention—”

Pressure builds behind his eyes and Kurapika drops his head back to blink up at the ceiling. His nails scrape against the soft leather of the book’s cover, digging in as he snaps, “I _know!_ ”

Senritsu arches a cool and unimpressed eyebrow at the bite in his voice but doesn’t comment on it. It’s a kindness that galls him; the idea that she knows him well enough already to know he hates _this_ and not _her,_ the blatant show of care and concern that rankles as much as it reassures him. His leg _itches_ in the cast and he’s been wearing the same shirt for three days, and this really must be what hell feels like. 

Mercifully, Senritsu makes her excuses a few minutes later, with a pointed look at his leg and a quick squeeze of his shoulder as she goes—and just like that, Kurapika is blessedly, miserably, alone.

Kurapika is only just starting to enjoy the unexpected benefit of the peace and quiet that comes with virtually no one in the world knowing where he is when Hisoka climbs in through the second floor living room’s window, hauling a basket of fruit with him.

He doesn’t look up from his book until Hisoka is all the way in, basket perched on his hip and dusting off his outfit—it had taken Kurapika twenty minutes to clatter across the hall and back for this book, he’s damn well going to enjoy it—and even then, he waits until he reaches the end of the page. 

“I have a door,” he says. “You could’ve used it.”

“But then I would have had to knock,” Hisoka tells him, with a smile that looks pasted on, “and then you would have to hobble down to answer, and that would put unnecessary stress on your fragile, broken body.”

There’s something about the way Hisoka says _fragile, broken body_ with undue emphasis that has Kurapika resisting the urge to shudder. “Right. So breaking and entering was the obvious second choice.”

Hisoka’s smile doesn’t waver. He tilts his head to the side. “I brought you a fruit basket. You ought to be grateful.”

Kurapika flips the page. “I’m allergic to strawberries.”

Hisoka considers that for the briefest of moments and then, with the undeserved confidence of a professional asshole, strides out of the room and down the hall. “No need to follow me,” he tosses over his shoulder just as Kurapika throws his book aside and lunges for his crutches, “I can show myself to the kitchen!”

“You know where the kitchen is but you don’t know I’m allergic to strawberries?” Kurapika shouts after him. There’s no response, and as he levers himself off the couch Kurapika debates the merits of risking Senritsu’s wrath to pry off the cast with his nails and beat Hisoka out the door with his crutches, fruit basket or not. 

Kurapika makes it all the way across the room just as Hisoka reappears in the doorway.

“Do you like your tea with milk,” he asks over the strangled sound that Kurapika definitely doesn’t make, “or lemon?” 

“Neither,” Kurapika snaps. Hisoka tips his chin in response and turns sharply on his heel, leaving Kurapika to hobble after him. Kurapika makes it down to the kitchen five minutes after Hisoka does, out of breath and furious and sweaty in places he didn’t know he could sweat. Hauling himself into one of the kitchen chairs is such a relief Kurapika almost cries. “Why are you here?”

“Friendly concern,” Hisoka replies, head in the fridge and what looks like the entire cupboard of dishware on the counter while he puzzles out how to store his gift, “I thought we had a rather fruitful relationship.”

Kurapika rolls his eyes. (He thinks, momentarily, he can see the tiniest place in the back of his head where he has the smallest ounce of patience for Hisoka's games.) “Try again.”

“If I found out where you were,” Hisoka muses almost to himself, finally deciding on an obscenely garish crystal bowl and holding it up to his face to peer at Kurapika through it, “I thought you’d like to know that it’s possible.”

And if he did it, there are probably more visitors on their way, with fewer fruit baskets. “So, out of the goodness of your heart you decided to let me know?”

“I was hoping you could tell me where Leorio is, actually. I need his opinion on something.”

Kurapika isn’t certain what makes him pause—that Hisoka needs Leorio’s _opinion_ on something, or that when he really stops to think about it Kurapika isn’t entirely sure _where_ Leorio is. It’s something he tries not to dwell on, if he’s honest, but Hisoka props a hand on his hip and smiles and waits. Kurapika shrugs. “He’s studying for medical school, same as before.”

Hisoka hums under his breath but says nothing. He finishes putting the fruit away and makes room for it in the fridge while Kurapika watches in chilly silence, cups of tea untouched on the table between them. It’s not a lie, not exactly—that must be where Leorio is, it’s the place he was the last time Kurapika missed his phone call and just didn’t quite manage to call him back. In fact, it’s probably best that Kurapika not know exactly where he is, if Hisoka is looking for him—it’s fine. Leorio is fine. They’re fine. 

Kurapika wakes up to the overwhelming smell of hyacinth and what sounds uncannily like a spade chipping away at gravel. Scrambling out of bed groggy and groping for his crutches—it’s only taken two weeks for him to start _sleeping in_ , for fuck’s sake—he thinks it’s Senritsu walking up the path through the garden, or worse, Hisoka back with another fucking fruit basket. As he rounds the corner between the kitchen and the yard fast enough to send a jolt of pain up his leg, Kurapika catches a flash of black hair and wide eyes. He thinks _Gon_ as he shoulders the door open and steps outside and he’s—

And he’s absolutely wrong. 

Chrollo glances up slowly, setting down a pair of shears and reaching for a spade. “You’re a light sleeper.”

This is hell. This is hell and Kurapika is in it. “Hazards of my occupation,” he hears himself say, miles and miles away.

“I’m fixing your tire-fire of a garden,” Chrollo gestures with the spade at the turned-up soil and small pile of decorative stones like he has any right to be here, like he has any right to _speak_ to Kurapika, to do anything but _beg_ — 

“It’s not my garden,” Kurapika replies instead of _fuck you_ , instead of _I should have killed you when I had the chance—_

Chrollo brushes the dirt off his hands and stands, spade in hand. Kurapika shifts his weight to his better leg, can almost feel the weight of chains on his hand—and then Chrollo meets his eye and drops it. Instead, he grabs a pile of what Kurapika realizes now are flowers, and lets himself into the house.

What can he do? Kurapika follows him, checking around the corner because this is too surreal and he can’t help but wonder what exactly was in the medication he was prescribed. The cast on his leg feels like dead weight, an outrageous weakness, as he walks in on Chrollo hunting for a vase in his kitchen. 

“You expected me to come.” The way he says it doesn’t make it seem like a question, and he finally finds a vase under the sink. “Do those chains make it easier to find me?”

Kurapika doesn’t answer that, says instead, “Hisoka told me,” and takes a small bit of pleasure in the way Chrollo’s lips twitch. “Why are you here?”

“I came bearing gifts,” Chrollo says. “Some flowers, a fortune. Little things.”

Kurapika bristles. “A gift you stole from my employer first.”

“Yes, of course, your employer. What would they say,” Chrollo murmurs, running his finger around the rim of a glass Kurapika left on the counter the night before, “your _employers?_ Would they let you stay in their lovely home if they knew what I know?”

“That fortune needs my blood type and birthday,” Kurapika snaps, not avoiding the question so much as blatantly steamrolling past it, “two things that you—” Chrollo looks at him. Kurapika remembers who, exactly, he’s talking to. “—you have, apparently.” 

“Just a matter of knowing where to look,” Chrollo says mildly. 

That tells Kurapika literally _nothing_ about how his least favorite people keep winding up on his doorstep, and he tells Chrollo as much. 

“Don’t worry about it,” is the response he gets, and Kurapika hears blood roar in his ears. A cramp shoots across his palm, knuckles white and bloodless, and he forces himself to ease his grip on his crutches. “It’s worth less than the fortune, in any case,” Chrollo adds as he reaches for the bag he tossed on the table. Kurapika sees the cover of his book where it’s tucked behind a sheaf of papers. From what he’s seen of Neon’s power, he knows it would be the truth, if it worked; there’s no way Chrollo could twist it or trick him, only relay what’s written. It occurs to Kurapika that he should kill Chrollo for what he did to Neon _alone,_ it’s what he’s paid for, but Chrollo’s book sucks at the air around it where he sets it on the counter, commanding attention and heavy with the weight of its own power.

Which is a _stupid_ thing to think, Kurapika knows almost as soon as it crosses his mind. It’s just a book now, as trapped and mundane and harmless as Chrollo is and yet—and yet Kurapika’s palm itches the longer he stares at the handprint on the cover— 

“Get _out,"_ he demands sharply, jerking back from the book, clenching his jaw against the rest of the words clawing their way up his throat. Kurapika squeezes the hand grips of his crutches so hard the rubber squeals under his palm, and the cool weight of chains against his hand becomes more and more real with the throb of his pulse. Sucking in a sharp breath, he tears his eyes away from the book to glower at Chrollo instead. He’ll kill this man, he will, but not here. Not yet. “I don’t need your gifts.”

Chrollo holds his gaze for a long moment, the muscle in his jaw working with his own things left unsaid, but he tucks the book back in his bag and slips out the door without another word. Kurapika stares at the vase he leaves by the sink until long after the sun sets and the only light in the room is the glow of his eyes in the glass, watching him back. 

The flowers Chrollo left on the kitchen table catch fire two seconds before Killua materializes on the porch.

Kurapika doesn’t sense him first, mouth sharp with the taste of apple juice and then copper one after the other. When he yanks open the door to see who the _fuck_ is on his doorstep yet again, he has to stop and blink before he even realizes that Killua is there. Killua and—a friend?

“Oh,” he says, and then, “you lit my flowers on fire.”

Killua snorts. “I thought you hate flowers.”

Kurapika can’t remember when they’d ever had a conversation about his alleged hatred of flowers, but he lets them in anyway. Killua and his friend wander into the kitchen (“Alluka, don’t touch that,” Killua mutters at the flowers that are still burning themselves out on the table) while Kurapika sets about doing the only thing that he considers routine about this never-ending string of guests: he makes tea. Killua watches him limp around the kitchen but knows better than to offer his help, instead whistling lowly when he opens the fridge and comes face to face with what’s left of the infamous fruit basket. “That’s sure a lot of strawberries.”

“Hisoka brought them.” Kurapika hasn’t used the crutches since Chrollo left the week before. He won’t be caught off guard again.

Alluka doesn’t say much while they wait for the water to boil, but keeps glancing over at Killua until Kurapika starts glancing at him too. As if he’s aware of their eyes on him, Killua rubs the back of his neck as he stares into the fridge, pulling out food at random and putting it back just as absently. Sat on one of the tall stools pulled up against the counter, Alluka starts to drum a foot against the stool’s leg, eyes fixed on Killua’s back as he steadfastly doesn’t look at either of them. 

It strikes Kurapika that this is, somehow, the most pleasant visit he’s had yet, despite the awkward unspoken shroud that Killua seems to have dragged in after him. 

“She wants to offer to fix your leg,” Killua sighs, snapping Kurapika out of the reverie that Alluka’s drumming had pulled him into. Killua glances over his shoulder at them, and Alluka crosses her arms over her chest in a way that reminds Kurapika suddenly of Pairo, when he was stubbornly set on getting his way. “And I said no, and she’s being a brat about it.” 

_Oh,_ Kurapika thinks, between the utter lack of venom in Killua’s words, the empty threat of an indulgent older brother, and the way Alluka bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “It’s kind of you to offer,” Kurapika says carefully. Alluka’s head swivels his way. He gets the eerie feeling that he’s being _watched,_ something alive flickering in the way light reflects in her eyes. “But it’s only a couple of weeks left now. Besides,” he adds, glancing out the window, “I’ve been topping up with Nen. A little bit.”

Killua scoffs, shutting the fridge door with a decisive snap when its temperature sensor trills at him. “Isn’t that a thing you’re not supposed to do?” 

In Kurapika’s defense, he’d fully intended to leave Emperor Time for emergencies. He’d lasted about a week. “Shut up.”

“What’d Leorio say about it?”

“Nothing?” Killua frowns at him. Kurapika scowls. “They took me to some doctors near Yorkshin, apparently the best that money could buy.” The assumption that he’d seek out Leorio specifically leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, as an assumption on its own _and_ because in hindsight, Kurapika’s not sure why he didn’t. “The wires are meant to come out after four weeks, the cast after six.” But he’s pushing for five, he doesn’t add, riding the thin line of funneling enough Nen into the bone to heal it without making Senritsu suspicious.

“Probably a good thing,” Killua says, pulling the fridge open again, “Leorio’d probably make you keep them in for eight. Then you’d yell at him and he’d yell at you, and Gon’d—” Killua’s lips press into a thin line, the sentence dropping off in the silence of the kitchen with only Alluka’s drumming foot in the background. Just as abruptly, Killua turns his head to look at him, resting his chin on the arm holding the fridge open. His brows furrow. “D’you know how to make jam?” 

Kurapika’s going to get whiplash before this visit’s over, because what kind of question is _that?_ “In theory?”

In practice, they make a decent go of jam-making—although only because Kurapika sets the bar very low at _not burning down the house—_ even if Kurapika has to suffer Killua’s particular brand of surreptitious concern, standoffish and overbearing all at once. “You really suck at taking care of yourself,” Killua tells him at one point, wrinkling his nose at the four half-empty tins of instant coffee in the cupboard. (Which is rich, coming from someone who’d blown his Heaven’s Arena winnings on candy.) He hovers over Kurapika and Alluka in equal measure, always within reach, and the fact that it’s a side of Killua Kurapika’s rarely seen before keeps it firmly endearing instead of irritating. 

But they’re gone nearly as quickly as they came, Alluka carefully cradling one of the still-hot jars of jam between her palms—repurposed from the dainty latching jars meant for the tea bags now tossed haphazardly in a bowl on the table. Kurapika walks them to the door before it occurs to him that he and Killua are playing the same game, a careful hopscotch around a fixed point.

“I forgot to ask,” he starts, and ignores the way Killua’s eyes sharpen on him, both perfectly aware of the lie, “how’s Gon doing?”

Killua’s shrug is easy as Alluka loops one of her arms through his, but his shoulders are a line of stiff tension. “Dunno,” he says, leveling a keen glance at Kurapika’s cast, and then he and Alluka vanish with a crack.

When the phone buzzes against his cheek just as Senritsu takes a deep breath on the other end of the line—Kurapika had just replied to “How are you getting around on the crutches?” with “I stopped using them, actually” so really he deserves what comes next—Kurapika thanks any god listening for the divine intervention even though he doesn’t recognize the new number calling.

“Sen—Senritsu—Senritsu, I need to go, someone else is calling—” He fumbles the phone away from his face and switches to the new call, pressing his phone back between his cheek and shoulder. “Hello?”

There’s a beat of static where Kurapika wonders if Hisoka’s graduated to crank-calling, and then the sharp whine of feedback as a voice too close to the phone shouts, “You _broke_ your _leg?”_

The indignance in the voice alone makes Kurapika think _Leorio?,_ before Gon continues in a crackle of poor connection and the sullen concern that only twelve-year-olds can muster, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Ears ringing, Kurapika clutches at his head with his free hand and groans. “Did Hisoka tell you?” 

“No!” exclaims Gon, still exuberantly loud. Somewhere in the background there’s the rustling of wings and the aggravated sound of a bird disturbed. Quieter, Gon continues, “Senritsu told me that you got hurt, because I said I hadn’t talked to you in a while.” He pauses, and Kurapika feels a little bit bad. “She knew I’d be worried.”

Knew he’d be worried and that he’d call, another person to browbeat Kurapika into some semblance of self-care. Kurapika briefly wonders why it’s not Senritsu running the mafia, and rubs a hand across his eyes. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Gon,” he sighs, and genuinely means it, “and that I haven’t called. How have you been?”

Kurapika makes his way out to the back garden, only half-listening as Gon chatters his ear off. He’d gleaned enough from Killua that he can follow along while Gon talks about climbing a tree and mentions a photo he’d taken recently, a flock of birds backlit and soaring. “I wanted to send it to you too,” Gon is saying brightly, but he hesitates, “I just, um, wasn’t sure where to send it to?”

“It sounds like you’re having a good time,” Kurapika replies smoothly, a neutral-enough response. “I saw Killua recently too, you’ve all—” he cuts off, words caught between his tongue and his teeth, “—you’ve all been having adventures without me.” To his own ears, he sounds needy and more than a little pathetic, and he can only hope Gon’s too distracted to hear it. “Leorio too, I’ll bet.”

“Well, yeah!” Gon laughs. Kurapika waits but Gon doesn’t continue, and as the silence drags on, it’s clear he’s expecting Kurapika to laugh too. Finally, Gon adds, “Didn’t he call you? I thought you’d be the first one to know!”

_Know what?_ The last call he’d missed from Leorio had been weeks ago. (He says _missed_ but knows that’s a lie, remembers watching the phone buzz and go to voicemail pressed between his palms, lit by the glow of a row of vials all lined up and holding vigil.) “I imagine Leorio’s—” Kurapika grips the phone tight enough that the casing squeaks, “he’s been pretty busy.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Gon replies absently, attention already being pulled away by something around him. But then suddenly serious, he murmurs, “Kurapika, you take care of yourself, okay?”

It’s easily the hundredth time he’s been told that and it should just piss him off, but Gon’s sincerity compels Kurapika to mumble an agreement. 

If Gon’s upset with his lack of enthusiasm he doesn’t show it. Instead he promises to tell Leorio that Kurapika says hello the next time Gon sees him, still bemused that they hadn’t already talked in the first place. “Hasn’t it been weeks? And he didn’t call you? I can’t believe it!”

After a lengthy goodbye undercut by the ominous sound of a bird getting closer, Kurapika hangs up and huffs an aggravated sigh that flutters his bangs against his forehead. He can’t quite believe it either.

The last of Hisoka’s fruit vanishes as bizarrely as it had first arrived—just as Kurapika finally decides to bin the fruit before it goes bad in the fridge, it’s taken off his hands. 

By Tonpa, of all people, who shows up uninvited and unannounced and makes himself comfortable at the kitchen table to stuff pear after pear into his mouth. It’s a bit like watching a vacuum at work, Kurapika thinks as pears disappear one by one from the bowl, or a particularly ambitious snake—as impressive as it is absolutely fucking gross. 

“No, please,” Kurapika deadpans, watching another pear core go sailing into the trash can, “help yourself.”

Tonpa grunts and waves a hand at him as he chews, inviting Kurapika to sit down in his own damn kitchen. He wants to keep standing out of spite and wavers by the table, but he’d woken up to an unbearable itch in his leg, spreading like wildfire under his cast. 

“So,” Tonpa starts as Kurapika pulls out a chair and sits, “How’ve you been?”

They’re really doing this, aren’t they? “Fine.” There’s juice running down Tonpa’s chin and a glint in his eye that Kurapika suspects means he’s being disgusting on purpose. “And you?”

“Great.”

Kurapika clenches his jaw so hard he feels his pulse in his teeth. “Fantastic.”

“So, how about that lawyer friend of yours?” Tonpa drawls apropos of nothing, formalities out of the way and reaching for another pear. His third, or maybe his fourth, Kurapika’s lost count. They must be mealy by now, but that doesn’t seem to bother Tonpa. “He been around?”

“Leorio’s a medical student, in case you didn’t know,” he says instead of gagging. 

(Tonpa knows, and he knows that Kurapika knows he knows, which makes Kurapika long for the crutches he abandoned in some closet on the third floor just to have something within reach to bludgeon Tonpa with.)

“Oh right, medical student, I’m sorry,” says Tonpa, not looking the least bit sorry. “Geez, when does the guy have the time? Everything going on else, no wonder he’s so stressed!” 

“Well, he has been busy,” Kurapika hedges, a comment rather than a question. He can’t _ask,_ not without admitting he doesn’t know what Leorio’s been busy _with,_ that he hasn’t spoken to Leorio in at _least_ four weeks, if not certainly longer. Six, maybe, or seven? Kurapika measures time now in the gaps between each vial of eyes he recovers, in the moments in the morning between being awake and being _aware_ where he, mercifully, has no idea who he is. Trapped in the countryside, counting down the minutes until he’s free again is the first time he’s measured time in _days_ since he first walked into a Nostrade family home. “I can pass him along a message, if you want.”

“Nah.” Tonpa tosses the last pear’s core at the bin and they both watch it teeter dangerously on the edge before tipping in with the rest. He kicks at Kurapika’s cast under the table, nudging the plaster with his toe. “I can probably get to him faster than you can right now.”

Would anyone _really_ miss Tonpa if he just....vanished? Kurapika digs his nails into his palms and focuses on the itch in his leg instead of vague fantasies of homicide. “You should probably get on that, then,” he hisses, aiming for steady calm and falling short, “Leorio’s a busy guy.”

Pears devoured and Kurapika’s nerves sufficiently frayed, Tonpa heaves himself to his feet with a sigh. “Well, I can see where I’m not wanted!” Before Kurapika can ask him what, _exactly,_ ever gave him the impression otherwise, he plows on, “I just wanted to pay a visit, you know? Get the gang back together, since it looked like last year’s Hunter Exam was gonna be the last good one for a second there.” He picks at his teeth with his fingernail as he ambles towards the back door. “I’ve seen a lot of little groups come and go during the Exam, just saying, and I really thought yours would stick it out. True blue buddies and all that.” Tonpa sighs, the very picture of heartbroken if not for the sly grin pulling at his lips. “What a shame.”

Kurapika manages not to laugh at the horrified noise Tonpa makes when the ugly crystal bowl he’s hated all these weeks explodes against the door frame, inches from Tonpa’s face—but it’s a very near thing. 

Leorio is making himself coffee in one of the pretentiously small glass cups that Kurapika's always hated. He’s also not looking at Kurapika as he does it, pointedly focusing all of his attention on the task, and Kurapika’s always hated that too.

But Kurapika lets him, watches Leorio fiddle around with the machine with his particular brand of pedantic stubbornness that Kurapika pretends he hasn’t missed with a stubbornness of his own. The coffeemaker burbles and clatters as it works, lagging after weeks of being replaced with Kurapika’s penchant for instant coffee. (Leorio’s one concession to even acknowledging Kurapika was in the kitchen with him had been to shoot him a withering glare when he’d found the tins.) Finally, Kurapika sighs and leans back in his seat. “Do they teach you how to deal with itchy casts in medical school?” 

Leorio blinks at him, startled out of his stony anger. “What? No?”

“So you're not learning anything useful then, huh?” Leorio just keeps looking at him, a crease between his brows. Kurapika picks at a groove in the tabletop. “I get the feeling that you're waiting for me to apologize.” 

“I'm not holding my breath,” Leorio replies, turning back to his coffee. There's no bite to his tone, not even the hint of chastisement, but it stings to hear nonetheless. “I'm trying this new thing where I don't set unrealistic expectations, but I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice.”

Kurapika bristles, mouth twisting into a scowl. He doesn't look away when Leorio glances back up, knows from the flicker of surprise across Leorio's face that his own eyes are bleeding into red. He wants to say something about unrealistic expectations, to throw Leorio's words back in his face—but Kurapika’s tongue feels leaden in his mouth. He’s always more hammer than knife where Leorio is concerned.

“Chrollo came to see me before you did," is what tumbles out of his mouth, clumsy and raw in the space between them.

“I didn’t know.”

“Why didn't anyone tell you?”

“Because they thought you would tell me,” Leorio bites out, voice brittle. “Because they think we still talk.” Kurapika opens his mouth but Leorio goes on, louder, more emphatically, “But until Gon called to scold _me_ about why I didn’t come visit _you_ while you were recovering, I didn’t know a goddamn thing about it!”

Leorio’s right, of course he’s right, but all Kurapika can focus on is the way Leorio jabs at the tabletop while he talks, jittering his stupid little cup in its stupid little saucer. He’d forgotten Leorio did that. “I’m sorry.”

Leorio’s jaw drops, mouth working in silence. He’d come expecting a fight, clearly, and even Kurapika’s a little surprised by the words out of his own mouth. Throwing up his hands, Leorio shoves away from the table with an aggravated cry and the screech of chair legs to stalk across the kitchen. Halfway to the fridge he spins on his heel and points a finger at Kurapika, mouth still tripping over words, but then he turns back around and yanks the fridge door open so vehemently the hinges whine. 

Kurapika watches the rigid line of Leorio’s back as he stares into the fridge like it’ll tell him what to say next. The slope of Leorio’s shoulders moves with a deep breath. Kurapika spreads his hands flat on the table and presses his fingertips into the cool wood, bracing himself for the yelling. 

Leorio asks, “Why is there nothing but jam in this fridge?”

_Oh._ That’s—not what he was expecting. “Killua made it.”

The hand not holding the fridge door rises to Leorio’s face, and Kurapika thinks he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why did Killua make you jam?”

“Because Hisoka brought me a fruit basket full of strawberries.”

“You can’t have strawberries.” 

He phrases it like a statement because it is, because of course Leorio remembers that. Something warm and incredibly dangerous spreads in Kurapika’s chest. “That’s why it’s still in the fridge.”

Leorio hums in acknowledgement as he turns back to Kurapika, bottom lip caught between his teeth and glasses sliding down his nose. “You know, the more you tell me the less I think I want to know.”

“I’m so glad,” Kurapika says dryly, ignoring Leorio’s huff of laughter as he reaches for one of the jars,” that we’re finally on the same page.”

He means this, here, jars of jam and rows of flower beds and cupboards full of shitty tiny coffee cups, but the words hang heavier than that between them. Kurapika scoffs and shakes his head, dropping his eyes to the table and missing the confused eyebrow Leorio arches—enough people have sat at this table and waxed poetic about how much Leorio and Kurapika _talk_ and yet here they are, barely able to string together a conversation anymore.

“I do, though.” Leorio stares at the jam jar like it’s the most interesting thing in the world, voice carefully mild. Startled out of his thoughts, Kurapika almost asks him _do what?,_ before Leorio continues, “Want to know.” He clears his throat but his voice still scratches. “When things happen to you, I do want to know about it.”

Kurapika glances out the window when Leorio shuts the fridge door and crosses back to the table to sit across from him. There’s a _look_ on Leorio’s face, he can see it from the corner of his eye, that he doesn’t think he can handle meeting head-on. 

“Things happen to you too, Leorio,” he says. Leorio frowns at him. “You’re the man to be, lately. Everyone’s been asking me about you.”

“Bet you loved that.” Leorio scrubs a hand across his face. It knocks his glasses askew and he yanks them off. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair.”

Kurapika shrugs. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

Leorio doesn’t have a response to that so they sit in silence, both of them watching Leorio’s hands as he spins the little cup by its handle, sloshing the coffee. He has yet to drink any of it but Kurapika knows when he does he’ll complain about it being cold and bitter. As if he can read Kurapika’s mind—and really, Kurapika wonders sometimes—Leorio finally hooks a finger through the handle, knocks the coffee back with one swallow, and makes a face. Kurapika ducks his head to hide his smile as Leorio runs his tongue across his teeth with a grimace. By the time Leorio looks back to him, Kurapika’s face is pleasantly neutral. “When do you get the wires out?”

“End of the week.” Senritsu had already called him twice this week to remind him, like he hasn’t been counting down the days from the second he crossed the threshold of this house. 

“Can—Can I go with you?” Leorio reaches to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose before remembering he took them off, a flush spreading high across his cheeks. “For my own professional peace of mind.” He coughs, pulling at his tie. “Need to make sure you get seen by a doctor who knows his ass from his elbow.”

“So what would you be doing there?” For a heartbeat Leorio looks so offended that Kurapika starts laughing and can’t stop, even as Leorio scowls and grumbles half-heartedly about how it’s _fine, he didn’t want to go anyway._

They lapse into silence again, but a warmer one now, some of the tension bleeding from the room. It reminds Kurapika of the handful of days in the wake of Yorkshin—surfacing from the fever under Leorio’s acerbic care but still white as a sheet and exhausted, spending most of their evenings wrapped up in their own work on opposite sides of the room. Even now sometimes he thinks he can hear Leorio’s soft muttering in silent rooms, always half-expecting to look up and see him tucked in a corner behind Senritsu or Basho, frowning into a textbook and twirling a pen between his fingers. 

The expression on his face now is so similar to what it was back then that it takes Kurapika longer than it should to notice that Leorio’s exasperation has become less half-hearted: brows knit into an angry line as he bites at his lip, before he abruptly tips his head back and groans. Where he’d been idly sliding his glasses back and forth across the table, he now pushes them aside completely, arm halfway across the table and fingers wavering over empty air. “I’m tired of not knowing how to talk to you,” Leorio admits to the ceiling.

Kurapika reaches for his hand before he can think better of it and laces their fingers together without comment. He focuses on the contrast between cool wood and the heat of Leorio’s palm, the pulse he can feel faintly under his fingertips, instead of on the line of Leorio’s throat as he swallows hard and hisses a breath out between his teeth.

“What about after?” Leorio asks, a long while later. Kurapika jerks back in his chair but Leorio presses forward, resting his elbow on the table and meeting his eyes. “You practically _run_ the Nostrade empire now, everyone knows it. You’re not obligated to follow the family around everywhere they go.”

Kurapika stops tracing the jut of bone in Leorio’s wrist. He’s angry, suddenly, that Leorio’s going to make him say this out loud, like he doesn’t know the answer already. “I can’t.” Leorio’s fingers twitch in his grip. “There’s—I have somewhere I need to be.” He thinks of the empty church, the vials, of how many have been bought and sold and traded and stolen while he’s sat here. “Somewhere I’ve been away from for too long already.” 

“That’s—that’s fine,” Leorio mumbles, sounding the very opposite of fine. “Just,” fiddling with the curve of his cup’s handle with one hand, he runs his fingers up Kurapika’s arm with the other, “let’s keep in touch?”

The trail of Leorio’s fingertips burns from wrist to elbow, and Kurapika swallows against a sudden lump in his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“You promise?” Leorio snorts, rolling his eyes. “Last time you vanished, I was almost elected Chairman of the Hunter Association.”

The idea alone shocks a laugh out of Kurapika and smooths the wryness from Leorio’s smile into something shyer, fonder. “I promise,” Kurapika says. Leorio’s fingers are a steady point of pressure in the crook of his elbow. He tells himself it feels like an anchor and not a cage. “I’m only a phone call away.”

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i don’t know what this is. i just started writing and this is what came out.....no thoughts head full of fruit, apparently
> 
> anyway, i had fun and this fic is _done_ and as always cheers to the wonderful mods of the bang for running it all these years through thick and thin
> 
> edit: got matched up with the artist for my fic, the impeccable [frograin](https://frograin-art.tumblr.com/), whose piece can be found [here!](https://frograin-art.tumblr.com/post/622533922841116672/my-piece-for-hxhbigbang2020-this-is-for-an) please go love it, it's so good i want to weep


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